How to defend your business against security breaches?

Most of the businesses, nowadays, realize how important it is to have a comprehensive strategy for securing data to protect the organization, its employees as well as the clients. For small to medium businesses, this process is often a hassle free one owing to their size and less complicated business structures. For these companies a standard security plan is enough to achieve the data security needs. On the other hand, the enterprises have a more complicated business structure. There are structural challenges that they should meet including huge clientele, wide array of products and services offered across the globe with various internal departments. The crux is that the business data stored at the enterprises are in huge volumes. For them, it becomes even more necessary to ensure that there are no security breaches.

There are certain data breaches that can be easily taken care of. However, certain breaches, like the one that took place in Anthem are a nightmare for any enterprise. The need is to stay vigilant against the perpetrators. Anthem’s database, consisting of 80 million records of both clients and customers, was hacked. Databases are the treasure troves of a company. So how can businesses fight such breaches and ensure protection for their companies? Here are a few ways in which you can adopt to ensure that your stored data is safe.

Keep an Eye on Accounts

You will have to monitor your existing accounts. The very first thing that the companies must watch out for is someone trying to trick the call center and take away important information. The most common mode is that the perpetrators try to break into by using the security question from the gathered information at the call centers. This kind of fraud is quite common. Thus, it is vital that you watch out for unauthorized activities on all the accounts.

Security Solutions – Your Ultimate Requirement

Firewalls are no longer enough. With the help of the IT initiatives, it is now easy to come up with an integrated approach for securing important data. A solution working on multiple levels is what the contemporary businesses require. What you need is a blend of network, content and endpoint securities.

Opt for Security Testing

IT enterprises need security testing on a priority basis. Most of the solution providers think from the perspectives of the hackers and offer solutions accordingly. Besides identifying the loopholes, they also assess their impacts on your business.

Safeguard Your Mobile Work

It’s no longer the 90’s. It is an age where mobile devices are rampantly used by the staffs to deal with sensitive information. They are working out in the open. They are more than often connected wirelessly with networks while on the go. The need here is to ensure that the mobile technology is safe enough so as to important data can be shared.

Storing sensitive information on cloud is a big no-no

The cloud is in. it is being fact adopted by several organizations to ensure quick work procedures. Using the latest developments is fine but you must practice caution. Never store vital information on the cloud. If you do so, you are leaving out data in the virtual world. This is not advisable at all.

Know About Cloud Service Storage

If you are using cloud storage, read the user agreement first to know how it works. it is necessary to read the volumes of texts to know the cloud service you are planning to sign up for works.

Encryption is the best

By encrypting your data, you can protect it in the best possible way. If your hard drive gets stolen and your data is encrypted, it would be impossible to retrieve it. By far, it is one of the best tools to fight back the security breaches. For those who avail cloud services, use an encrypted cloud service.

Companies face numerous security challenges. Therefore, securing data is not an easy task for them. Besides adopting several measures, the best way is to educate the employees about the best practices so that they know how important their role is in defending the business from security breach.

Firing Range – Latest Open Source testbed from Google to evaluate Security Testing tools

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And here comes Firing Range!

Google’s ‘Firing Range’ is a step towards securing web applications against hacking. Released in November 2014, it is an open source Java application built on Google App Engine which provides a test ground for testing the effectiveness of security test tools. And it contains a wide range of XSS (Cross Site Scripting) and other web vulnerabilities which are helpful to ‘test’ security testing tools.

Why do we need a testbed at all? Testbeds are used by Security testing tool vendors who want to create perfect test tools which are ready to test all vulnerabilities. And the only way to ensure test tools are more and more accurate is to test the tool itself against a testbed full of vulnerabilities – a synthetic testbed to both test current capabilities of the tool & set goals for what is needed to catch next.

Multiple testbeds similar to Google’s Firing Range are also available which can be leveraged to evaluate the effectiveness of a security testing/assessment tool. Some of them are OWASP WebGoat, OWASP Broken Web Applications Project (OWASPBWA), OWASP Hackademic, Damn Vulnerable Web Application (DVWA), Mutillidae and Metasploitable.

How does Google Firing Range benefit businesses?

As websites get more dynamic and complex, they have become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. A report from Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) puts the average cost to global economy from cyber attacks at approximately $400bn. Businesses stand to face millions of dollars in penalties when sensitive information like credit card details, social security numbers etc. fall into the hands of hackers. The associated loss of goodwill and trust could take years to regain.

• Major companies like Sony Entertainment, eBay, Snapchat and Apple iCloud became recent targets of hacking.
• The security bug Heartbleed, impacting over 66% of websites, remained undetected for 2 years exposing user login details to hackers.

The above shows hacking is rampant and bugs can be very hard to detect.

Firing Range attempts to increase the chances of detecting bugs and other vulnerabilities in the web application by enabling efficient security testing tools. It provides a detailed testbed which Web Application Vulnerability Scanners can use to detect vulnerability in the website. Its biggest advantage is it takes care of web vulnerabilities due to XSS. According to Claudio Criscione, security engineer at Google, XSS bugs represent 70% of all vulnerabilities detected at Google.

Firing Range is an open source code. Developers are free to try it, build upon it and give suggestions to improve the tool. It brings the advantage of Google’s rich experience in web security.

As companies strive to attract customers through innovative websites, they cannot afford to ignore the need to ensure their customers a safe web experience. Partnering with a third party that has expertise in evaluating security testing/assessment tools can be helpful in strengthening and increasing the effectiveness of the tool. Gallop’s Security Testing CoE will undertake the rigorous process of evaluating the Security Assessment tool, leveraging not only Google’s Firing Range but also similar testbeds like OWASP WebGoat, OWASP Broken Web Applications Project (OWASPBWA), Damn Vulnerable Web Application (DVWA), Mutillidae, OWASP Hackademic, Metasploitable.

Gallop Solutions excels in providing software security testing services using proprietary test accelerators and expertise in world’s leading test tools. With partnerships with these leading security test tool vendors, clients get to work with trained and certified test professionals at Gallop. If you have an application which needs to be security-tested, leverage the benefits of our pre-built security test framework which accelerates your test cycle while assuring quality. Drop us a line and we would be glad to assist.

Colocated security testing for maximum coverage

Why colocated testing is crucial for stronger security?

Security has become such a compelling concern for IT systems that major corporations have bounties for reporting security vulnerability.

This bounty system shows the extent of the threat that the vulnerabilities pose to the IT system and the organization.

How does colocated testing improve test coverage of vulnerabilities?

For an organization it would be difficult to handle to consolidate. Security is a vast area which spans across web, network and mobile. The nature of vulnerabilities range from insufficient layer handling and cross site scripting that can be exploited to compromise the integrity of the data.

How does a colocated security testing    strategy strengthen a test strategy?

While testing tools offer the power of automation, there exists a risk of certain vulnerabilities being undetected. When it comes to security, human intellect is the primary asset to simulate attacks. Moreover, a tester’s instinct plays a crucial role in executing possible and potential security breaches across the ‘device-data- user spectrum’. Such exploration reveals the source, location and cause of vulnerabilities.

Security is an ideal candidate for Collocated testing since the parameters of Confidentiality, Integrity, Authentication, Authorization, Availability and Non repudiation are unique to every business environment. Thus a traditional testing service will not be able to customize the assessments to the needs of the organization.

While security is a major concern, not every organization can afford to invest in the resources and infrastructure. Even if the organization manages to have an in-house security testing team, a bias cannot be ruled out. This is why an independent assessment is essential to bring in broader test coverage, deeper exploration and continuous monitoring.

As each organization has a unique API, SOA which is strengthened by ERP systems of technology leaders, a new breed of vulnerabilities are emerging along with the known ones. Since the IT systems are connected along intricate pathways, any new initiative or a feature upgrade brings a new set of security concerns. And in security, the yet unknown vulnerabilities are known to wreak havoc with the integrity.

The greatest strength of colocated security testing lies in bridging the test expertise of the independent testing enterprise and the priority areas of the client. Such an engagement would enrich the outcomes with vulnerability reports which identify the severity, impact and risk in the context of the business environment. This ensures a quicker and more efficient mechanism to ensure fail safe security measures while the application or software is being developed, deployed or used.

Gallop’s security testing services deliver a combination of business orientation with test expertise across verticals while accelerating the assessments, reporting and retesting.

With a scoring system based on CVSS 2 (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) and adherence to Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), Gallop leverages cloud enabled test labs to ensure a zero day vulnerability assessment.